By Christina Bruns
WaferNews, Associate Editor
Showing some small signs of hope for the semiconductor industry, VLSI Research, San Jose, CA, reported that the worldwide IC book-to-bill ratio rose to 1.19 for the month of November. That number is an increase of .17 from October’s revised 1.02. The research firm forecasts this figure to drop to 1.01 for the month of December.
Worldwide IC orders rose 19.6% to $10.85 billion for November from the $9.07 billion logged in October. The firm expects orders to fall to $8.99 billion for the month of December.
Worldwide front-end capacity utilization was also up for the month, hitting 73.7% from October’s 71.5%. VLSI predicts that figure to rise to 72.4% for the month of December.